This month I had the life-affirming experience of attending the first ever National Women’s Bicycling Summit in Long Beach. Organized by the League of American Bicyclists, the summit brought together more than 275 women (and not nearly enough men — CalBike’s Dave Snyder was among the few) from around the country to share their stories, successes, and struggles in an effort to increase the number of women who bicycle and take on leadership roles in the bicycling movement.

Currently, women make up only 24{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of all bike trips nationwide. In California, just 27{850a63fa8a72bae4d6bfa3f1eda9f619cddace10f9053ede128e2914f9ca5a15} of bicycle commute to work trips are made by women, according to the 2011 American Community Survey. “Without engaging, empowering, and elevating 50 percent of the population — women — we simply cannot succeed as a movement,” said Carolyn Szczepanski, communications director of the League of American Bicyclists, in her introductory remarks,

In her keynote during the opening plenary, Leah Missbach Day, founder of World Bicycle Relief, talked about the bicycle not as just a bicycle but as a tool for creating gender equality, economic opportunity and stability, and community cohesiveness, especially in developing countries. I think the same can be said about the power of the bicycle here in the U.S.

Our panel discussed why it is important for women to be involved in the political process, from attending city advisory, commission, or council meetings to being a member of an advisory committee, commission or city council as well as the barriers for why more women are not involved. We also discussed how we can encourage and empower more women to get involved, with a lot of women attending the session sharing their experiences.

Streetsfilms put together a great video that featured some of the women who participated in the social justice panel and showcased inspiring programs that are engaging women of color in cities around the country.

The League of American Bicyclists used the summit to announce its goal of achieving gender equity for all bike trips by 2025. I’m honored to join a team of brilliant women on the board of Women Bike, the new League initiative to help us reach this goal.

In California, CalBike is working to enable more women to ride bikes for transportation with legislation that will make it easier for communities to implement innovative bicycle infrastructure like we see in Europe. In Denmark and the Netherlands women bicycle at the same rate as men, in large part because the bicycle infrastructure is separated from auto traffic.

After the National Womens Bicycling Summit, I’m more confident than ever that we can achieve the same results in California.

In more evidence that CalBike’s work to reform the California Traffic Control Devices Committee (CTCDC) is paying off, last week the committee approved new designs for bike lanes and a new traffic sign notifying motorists of the new Three-Foot Law. Their quick action enables these changes to be included in the new California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (CA MUTCD) to be published before the end of the calendar year. Engineers throughout California rely on the CA MUTCD heavily; if a design isn’t in that book, most won’t apply it.

All new designs have to first go through the CTCDC, historically leading to lengthy delays for designs that professional bike planners and engineers know work in other countries and other states. That the CTCDC approved so many new great designs for bike lanes shows that the tide is shifting at Caltrans.

The reform effort started in 2011 with a bill sponsored by the California Bicycle Coalition and authored by Assemblymember Toni Atkins. The bill required Caltrans to include representatives of nonmotorized road users on their committee. Before the bill even made it through the legislature, Caltrans responded proactively by appointing two well-respected bike planners, John Cicarelli of Bicycle Solutions and Bryan Jones, now at Alta Planning. Cicarelli introduced all the measures approved last week; without him, none of this would have happened.

3 Foot Passing Signage

With the 3 Feet for Safety Law going into effect last month, the CTCDC moved to approve signs that remind drivers to pass bikes with at least 3 feet of room. These signs will be essential to spreading the work about the new law and reminding drivers of their responsibility to pass bicyclists safely.

Buffered Bike Lanes

While buffered bike lanes are already allowed in California, there was no specific design guidance for them. The new design guidelines provide clear instructions for providing painted buffers between bike lanes and auto travel lanes or between bike lanes and parking lanes. The design guidelines provide special guidance to call out driveway exits and areas where drivers must merge into the bike lane before making right turns.

Bike Lanes through Intersections

Brand new guidance now allows cities to strip bike lanes through intersections. Intersections, the area of highest stress and danger for bicyclists, was always the place where bike lanes disappeared. Thanks to this change in design rules, bike lanes can be striped with a dashed line through intersections to provide clear direction for drivers and bicyclists alike where bikes will be when crossing intersections.

Contra-Flow Bike Lanes

One-way streets can create key gaps in bike networks, encouraging wrong-way riding or biking on the sidewalk. The new CTCDC designs allow cities to build contra-flow bike lanes that are clearly marked and separated from one-way vehicle traffic going the other way. The types of separation allowed even include physical separation like bollards or raised concrete curb.